I suppose Patrick is mostly right in his roster of "overrated" poets. But even an overrated poet may write poems that are quite good. I certainly think that Kenneth Patchen and Frank O'Hara wrote some pretty good poems, and Patchen was a very reader of his work. As for Cunningham he once wrote me, after I had reviewed his Collected Poems, to tell me that "it is always nice to be praised for what one would wish to be praised for."
Patrick's own list of overrated poets betrays his innate aesthetic conservatism, his rejection of all forms of Modernism, and his rejection of free verse. Such biases he has revealed before on his blog, but never so blatantly as this. LOL
ReplyDeleteNot to say that I don't agree in some instances—I think Ashbery is definitely one of the most overrated poets these days—but I note that none of the contemporary practitioners of neo-formalist versifying appear on Patrick's list—and some of those are most definitely over-rated.
It's very revealing of a certain critical bias, whether or not one agrees. LOL
"none of the contemporary practitioners neo-formalist versifying appear on Patrick's list—and some of those are most definitely over-rated."
ReplyDeleteSo, Art, which would those be? Not picking a quarrel. Genuinely interested in your opinion.